Only Lies

Participants:

gabriel_icon.gif gillian2_icon.gif

Special Appearances By:

eileen2_icon.gif jenny_icon.gif peter_icon.gif

Scene Title Only Lies
Synopsis When one lie ends, another begins. Gillian and Gabriel have a confrontation with the past.
Date June 22, 2009

The Greenbelt

The Greenbelt is 2800 acres of mixed urban parkland and natural preserves, winding around and between several major communities. The more natural areas are primarily a succession of ridges and boulder-littered moraines beneath the canopy of a hardwood forest - beech, hickory, maples, and oaks in the main, with a variety of less common trees mixed in. At the lower points of the parkland, this forest gives way to wetland, overgrown with ferns, skunk cabbage, lady slipper, and trout lilies. The park's boundaries include a golf course, a cemetary, a friary, a boy scout camp, and a carousel, as well as the more stereotypical nature center and a native plant demonstration garden.


To find Gabriel, follow the trail of death.

In some sort of gesture of goodwill, he had moved from the cottage and it's careful gardens, further down the beaten trail leading into the Greenbelt, especially so that he might find adequate life to drain that won't drift the scent of rotted vegetation and dead insect towards the peaceful safehouse. And no one can accuse him of ruining the vegetables, herbs and fruits growing under the care of the safehouse owners.

The Greenbelt has enough life to spare, even when you don't count the wild dogs who know not to come too close to the roads, paths and scattered buildings. Branching from the pathway leading towards the coast, a new path's been created in the form of wilting greenery, a scoured hole through the vibrant flora about ten feet in width, tunneling through and leaving cracked tree trunks, flaking brown moss, grass that snaps and crumbles to dust underfoot.

Gabriel's at the end of it, a button down shirt draped over his left side with the sleeve hanging loose, his arm in a sling beneath the fabric, his other in its sleeve and gripping onto it as he drains the tiny lives of insects, leaves, twigs. His wandering has halted as ashy shadows make insidious trails through the dirt and dead vegetation; tendrils that drift from the bottom of his shoes, floating off his skin and clothing, and sapping away as much light as it does life.

Once they reunited after Moab, there'd been a similar stretch of follage in the general area, when he used the same ability to bleed life back into her, repair the nerve damage, the burns, everything that a lightning bolt to the arm had caused to her body. The near frostbite from ending up in Antarctica soon after, as well. Of all the abilities he had to get back…

Gillian follows the trail in the midday glow of light, even as the area around the man darkens. Shoes shift through the dead vegetation as she gets closer, watching the tendrils drifting around from the distance. In all, she looks much the same as he'd last seen her— except for wearing borrowed clothes. Her other clothing had been ruined by running in the night to come see him. Light blue would not happen to be her color— but it's clothes, so it works.

"If you have that one back— at least you're able to fix your arm," she says, in the direction of what's visible of the sling. "Is it going to be okay?"

He's glazy eyed and meditative, almost, by the time he hears her crunching foot steps, and as she speaks, the shadow appendages are already retracting. Some disperse, some draw back into his form, melting into the shadows of his body. "Eventually," Gabriel states, not yet looking at her as he observes the damage he's done with a slow once over of his surroundings. "It's not working like it used to. An ability I have doesn't let me. If I want to fix my arm, it's going to take more than a few trees."

A hand drifts up in an attempt to do at least another button of his shirt, which had hung half off his form - not out of shyness, but out of a need to at least be presentable. It's eggshell blue, a mild colour on him that seems at odds with his severe profile and general demeanor. Left untucked over jeans clad over long legs that end in scuffed, possibly familiar boots.

"But I won't lose it." So there's that. Now he turns to look at her fully, eyes scanning up and down, taking in the differences there.

There's so much that could be said in this moment. It'd been some time since the rooftop. A few things have happened, but Gillian doesn't manage to get any words out after that. The crunch of dead weeds under her feet mark her continued move closer, until she stops within a few feet of him. Misery and guilt and other heightened emotions had marked her up on the rooftop— Now, there's relief at his words. Not losing his arm.

The words that follow are genuine. "I'm glad." For him as much as her own mental image. Imagining him without an arm would almost be as bad as when he'd been without his abilities… without his memories…

Eyes glance down toward the many dead things. It'll take more than trees… "As soon as I heard you were hurt, I came. I tried to stay nearby in case you needed me, but… I still need to sleep." All of the many abilities and she hasn't figured out the not sleeping thing yet— if she ever had it. Sleep is necessary. She'll leave out meeting other people in the Garden, for the moment… When her eyes look up. "I wanted to help you."

The haziness isn't quite gone when he meets her gaze. Painkiller, if not actually morphine - there are only so many supplies within the cosy safehouse, and much like he'd been considerate enough to not destroy the greenery that seems to insulate them from the rest of the world, Gabriel had been cautious about tapping their supplies, if rather unthinkingly so.

Recalling what it was like to work within a group, much like the days of Vanguard. You make sure there's some antiseptic left.

"Because I wasn't awake enough to tell you not to?" he states, and to his credit, the words come out wry, with a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, gone again in the next blink. "It's a sniper rifle wound. There was only so much they could do for it apart from wean me off the morphine early and have me fix it myself."

Fix it himself. Pretty much everything that'd been said tells her she can't help him. There's something stubborn in her jaw, though, as Gillian looks up into his hazy expression. "I can regenerate," she suddenly says, something he should know about by this point. Assumably picked up from her encounters with the man who hurt him— but it'd saved her from getting killed by a wrench once already.

"I know that's not the same as if I'd met— whoever the hell ended up with Abby's ability… But…" Looking back down at the dead plants, casting her eyes around the area again. So much death, and he'd said more would need to die. Trees. A tree hugger she is not, but as she'd just said— she wanted to help him.

When she looks back up at him, she's already holding out a hand, "It might work faster than trees." It also might hurt like hell, which she's well aware of.

There's a pause as his gaze drops right down to her hand, while the stink of dead plants wraps around them in the warm summer breezes, and the sound of clicking insects begins to grow again as those left alive come to explore this new terrain of flaked apart forest life and ash. How much of that went back into his shoulder is up for debate, but he hasn't unraveled the binding of bandages, and one might imagine he'd be quick to.

There's a trace of reluctance in his frown, the angle of his eyebrows and the tick of tension in his jaw, but eventually Gabriel lifts a hand, hovering it near her's. "You'll need to tell me to stop," he says. "Sometimes it kind of… takes on a life of its own."

But at the very least, Gabriel isn't seeing pale eyes in the shadows of the clearing, no sibilant whisper of urging to take everything as so often happens when he loses control. Then, as he makes sure he has a handle on Julian's ability, he wraps a hand around Gillian's. The pain is instantaneous.

There's been moments in the past when a few people asked about the tattoos she would get, some in extremely sensetive areas. They'd ask if it hurt, how long it hurt, how much it hurt— Gillian would always downplay it. Each of them hurt, some more than others— and she's felt real pain besides that, especially since meeting the man. A hiss of an exhale can be heard at first before her hand grips tighter. Instinct says to pull away, that letting go, yelling stop, would make it disappear.

The pain would fade soon after— it always did before, with the wrench. The lightning lasted much longer— something she'd had to live with. But this

There's a visible effect, making her skin paler around the face, the areas they're not touching, and darker where they are. The regeneration might be doing it's best to keep up—

Unfortunately, the ability he's using, the first time they've touched in a long time… isn't the only thing they have to worry about. This ability came from the man who led Vanguard. Who a certain man thought was right— until he no longer believed that. A man whose touch brought pain in a completely different way.

It's like needles under the skin, frostbite, infection, the interplay of numbing cold and fever heat. Skin constricts, muscles shrivel, bones weaken, pain shooting and flaring up Gillian's arm— then dwindling against as her regeneration fights back, a rhythm of decay and renewal, and Gabriel's eyes half shut as slow, slower than it should, life trickles into his body.

And memories trickle out.

There's a boy, a teenager, falling to the ground with blood in and on his mouth, and Gillian won't recognise him, only see through the eyes of a man much younger than he is now, observing his own shaking hand before his gaze swings down to the boy he'd apparently swung out at. She might even feel that burst of anger, that sudden convulsion, like a breaking artery or cracking dam, before seeing a leg swing out to deliver a stinging kick into the young man's face, who screams, face bleeding red in a moment, as Gabriel gets ready to do it again, and again if need be.

But the world tips, someone tackling Gabriel to the ground with a cry of indignance for his fallen friend, and thick framed glasses fall and skitter across concrete. "You freak— come on, let's get out of here— "

Somewhere new, somewhere dark. A warehouse. A woman with dank red hair. In Gillian's head, she hears a murmur, a voice she knows well to be Gabriel's, soft and wavering: "You're scared? Not surprised."

There's a harsh cry and a clang of a body hitting metal. The ruined form of Jennifer Childs is filling Gillian's vision, now, half-starved, bruised, and terrified, a smattering of red blood on her cheek as she's invisibly pinned to the side of a freight crate, breathing like cornered prey. Gillian is forced to move closer, watches as a familiar hand lifts, points.

"You don't even know what you're capable of. I hear it, your doubt in your own power. I'm going to take it," and his other hand comes up, two fingers pointed, "and do it some justice." The unmistakable flash of lasers slices through the darkness as it does Jenny's skull. A scream turns into a whimper, and ropes of water lash out in attempted attack before smashing against the floor in a useless puddle around the time when her body stops shaking, and she and the top half of her head go rolling.

"…don't think she's good enough for you, Gabriel."

The scenario changes, another shock. Warm lighting, cramped walls, out-dated decor, and an older woman sits across from Gabriel, cutlery scraping against her plate. Virginia Gray smiles across at her son, a sad smile as if she couldn't put on another one. "You have everything you need here, with me, until you pick a school and— "

"Mom," Gabriel sighs out, voice resigned, "I'm not going to school. I have the shop, it's why I finished my apprenticeship, so I can do something with it."

"I don't see why you can't sell the thing and do something real with your life, Gabriel, you could be anything— "

The dining table shudders as Gabriel stands up abruptly, barely eaten dinner pushed away in a restrained show of temper. "It was dad's," he argues, voice fervent, and wilting beneath the wide eyed stare of disapproval Virginia is giving him. Silence settles, and so does he, back into his chair and hands coming to grip the edge of the table. Trapped here. "I'm sorry. I'm not moving out, I just— I wanted to ask in case you wouldn't mind…"

It's day light, suddenly, the outdoor setting of a city. Midtown, before. The buildings are intact, but Kirby Plaza is empty save for two people. One of which screams, "Sylar! You're going to pay, for everything you've done!"

"I'm not the one who's going to pay."

Before Gillian's eyes, Peter Petrelli suddenly goes flying through the air at a gesture of Gabriel's hand, the ground beneath Peter cracking under the force of the blow. Peter rolls like a cat, shining blood on his face and mouth twisted in a scowl as he suddenly launches himself up, flying to tackle Gabriel— or rather, Sylar— across the space— and into a police car, glass breaking. "You killed Ted!" And the younger man staggers away, the radioactive glow in his eyes suddenly coming from his skin as he slowly starts to lose control, raising his hands in horror.

"I've killed a lot of people, Peter. So many." Gabriel stumbles his way off the car. At least Gillian can't see him smile. "And I'm gonna kill more. That is— " His gaze drags deliberately up and down the other man. "Unless you beat me to it." His hand extends, a small explosion emitting from his palm in a ball of light, casting strange light and stranger shadows. He shows teeth in a wide smile. "Boom."

The scenery becomes suffocating, a box of metal— no, a room, rusted containers, the sounds of engines in the background, and there's a woman, inches away.

Gillian knows her face, Eileen, features too timeless to really communicate the extra ten years, save for in her eyes, her gauntness. Gabriel is moving the rifle strapped around her body, to the mild protest of Eileen, but only for a moment. There's a heavy clatter as the weapon falls, and they come together again, a heated kiss, Eileen lent back against metal as Gabriel guides her there, a feminine hand scraping along an uninjured shoulder while his grips at her clothing.

And it ends, because that's around the time Gabriel jerks his hand away. Something's wrong.

There's never a time when things weren't more wrong. The regeneration doesn't quite keep up at the speed it should be, to the point where muscles die and skin starts to rot— but this is due to the fact that a second ability is taking up most of the moment. An ability that reels images through her mind, voices through her ears. For those moments, Gillian barely registers the physical pain on top of all of that, it disappears into the images, drowning into the words.

Words that make her whimper softly as she exhales, a shake of her head. Words don't for until the connection has broken, heavy steps stumble away from him, pulling distance between them as the healing words to reverse the damage done to her arm.

Hazel eyes stay downward, to the dead earth, to her healing fingers and palm— but what she saw— what came through in her mind— it stays. In full detail. All of it. From the fights to the sex. Every detail of snippits of a past she'd never intended to easedrop on. Even the ones she knew about— seeing it— hearing… And Peter— taunted.

And her. And him. A vision of the past— his past. A past shared with a woman who's voice just recently reaffirmed the affections of the man she'd wanted to help. It might as well be repeating.

Dropping down to her hands and knees, she doesn't even have time to get hair out of the way before portions of the lunch she ate not long ago gets left on a pile of rotting weeds. The smell had nothing to do with the reason she suddenly retched.

When she can settle, breath comes quick, shortened— like someone hyperventlating. Her body is healing, recovering. But something else went terribly wrong. Something that makes her stomach turn, that makes breathing difficult, that makes tears stream down her face.

What flood of regenerative energy, the fountain of youth he'd sprung, dwindles to a trickle around the time he sees her arm becoming like brittle bone and dead meat and his eyes go up— some sort of sentimental horror arrows through his chest, releasing her, watching her stumble away, retch in ugly, throaty sounds, tears make saline streams on her face.

"I told you— to make me stop— " Gabriel grits out between clenched teeth, taking a few steps back over rotted, dusty grass. He hadn't lost control, he hadn't thought he'd lost control, but she's in such obvious pain that he had to have.

Or someone else lost control. Sunlight beats down on curving shoulders and dark hair, and the brittle, ashy limb of a tree above them casts a beaming shadow across his face as he watches her, eyes analytical, mouth slightly parted before his tongue comes to touch cracked lips. Eventually, he asks, "What happened?" The broken arm beneath his shirt, a month or so down the track of healing by now, remains forgotten in its sling.

The fact he doesn't get closer or try to touch her leaves no real sense to the first thing that comes out of her mouth. "Don't touch me," Gillian says, voice strained when she can manage those words. He'd moved away from her, even, so that shouldn't be a concern— but people rarely speak sane when they're frantic, and that's what's in her voice. "Fuck— I saw— I— shit…" Abilities are terrible things sometimes. No. He's not the one who lost control. It's not him— She'd certainly not meant to do what she did. She'd not meant to see what she saw. Not this time.

He could have been anything— done anything. And one of the many things he did…

When her breathing settles enough she can really look up at him with tear filled eyes, she starts with a simple. "She was so afraid." Her sister. "And you— you…" She doesn't finish, suddenly forced to look down again as she shakes her head. He killed her sister. A fact she'd known for some time. But seeing even a fraction of the truth rips through something she'd been trying to grasp onto.

Some of this rings familiar. Unfortunate. There's a pause as she looks up at him, gaze wobbling past the tears clingwrapping eyeballs and flooding eyelashes before she can see him sink down, knees bending beneath denim, one coming down to rest against the rotted forest floor and paying no heed to the interesting stains that will rub off. A blink, tears fall, and she will at least for a moment see him a little clear. His expression is one that reads wary concern, overt suspicion, reluctance, and something like accusation.

Something that communicates: what did you do? The words themselves don't make it, never leave his throat. He says similar ones, voice scratched with reluctance, shuffling out into the open as if they were being pushed onto a stage without a script. "What did you see?"

A hand finally leaves the dead grass and shrubbery to cover her mouth, wipe at sick on her lips. The tears don't do the right kind of job washing that away— not as good as water and a towel might, but it's probably for the best right now. Perfect detail— every moment. There'd been times she thought the ability could be a blessing— this is not one of them. "You killed my sister," Gillian says against her hand, voice slightly muffled, but audible and strained.

There was more than that. Him as a teenager, or there abouts. Bullying someone or fighting back. She's not clear on the context— There was also his mother. Peter. But there's one other that pinches somewhere deep enough to speak, a hint of anger suddenly showing in tear-shrouded eyes as she looks up through hair suddenly stringy. "You were kissing her." Not the other her she was just speaking about. "Eileen." Older— younger— the girl looked more or less the same. Everything else was his past, so that was too.

He wants to say you knew that, at that first part, but somewhere, some slice of self-preservation that so doesn't often show up when he has Eileen in front of him, stills his tongue before the words can come out. Presumably, seeing it with your own eyes makes it worse. Gabriel can understand that. It also hasn't quite filtered in what just happened, if his still-as-a-statue posture and frozen expression are to be of any indication.

His brow furrows in a twitch, and his head shakes, once, in denial. He's done many things with Eileen: kissing is not one of them. Except for— "In the future I saw, she was there. After the Bronx." A weak defense, maybe, the words coming out robotic, waiting for some sort of emotion to hit him. Like many times in his life, its absence is startling.

Then, the anger. That's familiar. Gabriel's face mirrors this emotion, incredulous at first. "What did you do? Did you read my mind? Why would you do that?"

In some ways that explaination might make it better. It'd been after her betrayal, before she even told him she loved him, but there's more, a hint of bitterness that she can't help but feel. It's his anger an accusation that draws her out again, jaw tightening as she spits words out. Anger is easier to deal with than the other emotions raging through her. "I didn't do it on fucking purpose! I just wanted to help you." The ability might have made her mind stray a little. That's the only thing she can really think of. "There's more people in the Garden than you and Eileen— Ran into the son of a bitch who shook my hand in the park and told your old buddies all about me."

At least she's not bitter enough to leave out the old. But there might have been a chance she would. Doesn't mean the bitterness is gone entirely, though, because moments later she adds on, in a muttered rasp, voice tight and almost whispery in anger, "No wonder you went back for her on the bridge."

A terrible thing to say, cause if he hadn't have, the girl possibly would have died. But as soon as it's out, even as soon as the bitter and jealous thought forms, there's no taking it back.

A bone-pale face creasing in tension as whatever plague of sins Gabriel has comes zigzagging through his mind, under the hazy fall sun on the open street cafe. This is the image Gabriel recalls at Gillian's words, and that righteous anger drains out of him like a plug had been pulled. Amato, and his ability to extract the memories of unfathomable sins.

Saving Eileen on the bridge was not one of them. "You're right, I should have let her die," Gabriel states, caustic sarcasm edging his words, defensive, injured. Kneeling on the ground where he is, his shoulder— his fucking shoulder still twinges impatiently, although perhaps the sling isn't needed anymore. Ignored, however, as Gillian falls under his hawk-stare.

What did you see. He says nothing for now, watching her, scrutinising and wary.

Not too long ago, she'd said that he did the right thing, going back for her on the bridge. If they'd tried to run off of it together like Helena did, they might have gotten knocked unconscious and dragged off to Moab with her. If he hadn't gone back, if she hadn't waited… But a piece of information changes all things. Bringing out new emotions that take a gesture she should praise and turn it into something else— … And it's easier than the heartbreak involving what Gillian saw with her sister.

The last thing her sister saw was him killing her— taunting her. Slicing her open with a laser. The whole thing had been through his eyes, but she can imagine what it must have been like through hers… It sounded like he was smiling.

Even with loss of control, how could her sister ever forgive her?

The stare in his eyes asks more questions, ones he doesn't need to voice outloud— the bitterness and anger falter under the streams of tears, but she tries to regain some of it by answering unrepeated questions, "I saw what happened with Peter— when he started losing control."

Kind of like when Gillian had crumpled to her knees on the rooftop in Staten Island, Gabriel doesn't try to comfort her now. When you feel responsible, somehow, even after disclaiming it as your error, it's hard to hold someone who sheds tears over your mistake. And now he knows he's responsible, at least for the things she's seen. Sins are what they are for action, intent.

He remembers Kirby Plaza. "He was hunting me, I hunted him. We fought. He wanted to kill me, wanted to play the hero taking down the villain. I gave him that. I laughed at him."

It's all stated simply, bitterly but not with the rue it should have. Gabriel's posture has relaxed into where he's kneeling, his own eyes glazed a little with memory. "I thought it was supposed to be me. I thought I was supposed to destroy Manhattan. It was horrifying until I realised I wanted to. I needed to— do something. Change the world. But it was him. He couldn't contain it." And the slightest of sneers, still, edge those words.

The truth may set someone free, but right now, Gillian hates it. It's painful— it does nothing to stop the tears. It isn't that she never knew he had been capable of these things in the past… There's ways it effect things that she had formerly held true in her heart. "I was going to help you stop that from happening again," she says quietly, voice hoarse and whispered. He was horrified thinking it was going to be him— until realizing he wanted it to happen.

Change the world. The world certainly changed that day, but… "I don't— I thought you despised him because he'd been too weak to control it, to contain it…" Something that he unfortunately discovered he had a connection to when her power made him discover weakness in his own sense of control.

Tears still roll down her cheeks as she chokes out, "You wanted to change the world." A change she can't believe had been for the better. But in a way she understands it. The last few months she'd wanted to help change a very small part of the world… him. Even when what she couldn't help change threw up barriers between them.

There's a window of opportunity here. Gabriel is half convinced it will slam shut and he'll crash into metaphorical glass, but in between her rasping breaths, her tear-choked words, there is time to speak. Unable to defend, but at least he can be honest. There's no real sense in lying. "I did despise him," he states. "I do despise him. He— you can walk by a stranger, take on their ability and wield it like a child with a sword, learning nothing and gaining everything."

His words fall harshly, that old resentment he's not even sure he feels anymore, not since in light of understanding what his own power made him so. "It was easy, and unfair. I had to turn into a monster to get what I wanted and he just had to blindly, stupidly walk into it."

Envy about as green as the plants around them aren't. The scowl on Gabriel's face lessens, his eyes dull. "So he became the monster, in the end. Because it's shouldn't be that easy to be a hero."

Do despise him. Followed by involving her in it through the fact that she currently possesses the ability that he despised for it's ease— the fact that it could easily turn her into a monster for the sake of trying to be a hero. Gillian can't help but think of the moment she walked into Pinehearst, intent on finding out anything at all that the building had to offer that might help bring the man in charge down— when she spoke up in the meeting she walked in on about how she would gladly supply a distraction to take the man down.

Try to be a hero with something she may not have any hope of controlling— with powers she doesn't understand and still possesses. The majority of the abilities she has would be included in that.

She's still crying, but the breathing has slowed enough to allow her to speak in more than just gasps. "I could've let Delphine fix me, then I wouldn't have this power that you despise." He's being honest, and so can she. "But I won't— because I don't know any way to help without it— to bring down Pinehearst for everything that they've done— everything they might do."

Maybe she wants to be a hero— but more accurately she just wants to take control, to deal with it herself. To stop running away. It would have been so easy to take her power back and walk.

There's a silence for a little while, taking in her words, brows pulling into incredulous angles at what she has to say. To him. To all of it. "Fuck everyone who's not like Peter?" he suggests, voice as flat as concrete. Unimpressed with her sentiment. "Do you want to know what I learned, in the last few moments of being powerless?

"Nothing."

His ire has turned to her, somehow, perhaps in the absence of true anger turned to him. "I didn't act fast enough when I could have, I didn't think, and when I finally got my powers back, Arthur stripped them away and I lost again. If you think copying what Peter can do makes you any kind of hero, you are sadly mistaken. There are non-Evolveds in this world who are stronger than all the powers you try to collect."

Tension pulls at torn muscles, forcing Gabriel to pause, to breathe, but it doesn't quite stop his words. "You make your own power," he finally mutters. "But I'm not sure you can see past yourself for long enough to understand that. You can't even see the villain when you're staring him in the eye."

There's a lot of anger building between them, and it doesn't stop. The ire thrown at her makes her back stiffen, her body straighten up, and even the breathing settle so she can glare through tears and stringy dark bangs. Suddenly she's moving, perhaps even too quickly for him to get out of his knelt position. It's not a punch she throws at her face like it might have been, but a slap. Perhaps part of her remains aware of the pain in his arm— a slap stings, but leaves less lasting damage— especially on someone who's already been beaten as much as he has.

The hand is damp with her tears, even. No flicker of memories this time— no super strength behind the slap. "Maybe there's no such things as villains or heroes."

That blur of movement, followed by the stinging connect of an open palm against his face, striping skin red for a temporary moment, uninjured arm out to balance himself— before that, too, in a similar if more mundane blur, moves around to wrap his larger hand around her wrist before it can completely withdraw. A sting shimmers down her arm at the slightest of twists.

"You're right. There's only lies."

The anger that masks his face breaks for a moment. There's still the vague imprint of fingers, of palm, on his face. "And weakness. Your sister died because neither she nor I could stop me. Our fault, together, and now she's in my head."

"I hope she stays there and haunts you forever then," Gillian can't help but angerly spit out at him, pulling against his strong grip, the twisting of her wrist. A wrist with a rose wrapped in tribal symbols on it. The grip causes pain, especially at her elbow, but it's nothing compared to the pain when she attempted to help him and found something that causes much more lasting pain hidden under the surface. There's only lies— and maybe that had been another one, albet one with quite a bit of momentary truth to it as well.

"I'm fucking sick of lies— and if everything… I pulled away from you because I don't know where the lies started and where they end." It's not a lie. There'd been somemore to it, but she'd said a time ago that lies seemed to be all they had— at least she knew which ones were hers— it was his she never got a handle on. When she looked into his eyes and saw something… what should she have been seeing? She hasn't known for a while.

"Let go of me."

His mouth turns into a scowl, and he does let go; it's almost a shove backwards, accompanied with the heated words; "They stopped on the bridge." The lies, that is. The venom in his tone harks to the hurt beneath the anger, lava underneath congealed, blackened volcanic rock; it hisses and spits and rolls beneath that dark density, unstoppable.

Anger was more of a mask anyway. "And you never tried to work that out. Too busy trying to moralise to understand. Let go of me." Some of the tension slackens, even as he comes to stand, and a breath of laughter leaves him, as if he'd been holding onto it.

From where she's stumbled as she's let go of, practically shoved, Gillian keeps her eyes on him as she hears the words, the venom in his tone. And all of a sudden a single piece of that vision of his sins of the past raises to the top in perfect recollection.

"…don't think she's good enough for you, Gabriel."

It hadn't been about her, but maybe… It stopped at the bridge. Which would be when he lost himself to become someone else— when her lies, began. Where things she'd been too weak to address threw up barriers between them. The tears start fresh as she takes another stumbled step back, shaking slightly. Many abilities could go out of control with the torrents of emotions inside. There's a heavier crunch of dead wood, and her skin turns gray under the blue of the borrowed clothes. It slides up until it engulfs her entirely. Once he'd said not feeling would be better. It seems she suddenly believes him. No longer does she have to breathe— it stops the tears, the twisting in organs that no longer exist. Even her hair's silvery-gray.

A voice reverberates in a way that has as much to do with the form as emotion— she doesn't have to breathe to speak anymore, nor does it have to travelled through tightened teary throat. "Goodbye."

There's even more crunches as she turns and starts to run away. At normal speed. But even a tree would have a tough time stopping her…

A trickle of fear that both of them are too distracted to acknowledge runs through his veins at the sudden change to iron he sees before him. Gabriel remembers hands around his throat, the strength there that could rip him apart like wet paper, made him feel helpless as a boy and his innermost nightmares. But it's gone, he knows it's Gillian, and he recognises what she'd doing.

He watches her walk away with eyes that aren't quite the hematite her's have turned into. Recognises the need to feel nothing. Because apart from the shame, the aftermath of anger and simmering hurt, and a flash of sadness for what he doesn't think he's going to get back—

Certainly not now. Maybe not ever.

Apart from all that, he feels very little at all. But he doesn't stop her, as unable to do so as the vegetation she crashes through.


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